The course is divided into three main parts. The first is dedicated to common types of sensing instruments and their principles of operation. Students will get acquainted with electric signals, characteristics of sensors, temperature sensors, pressure sensors, measurement of mechanics and physical properties of fluids, RC circuits, noise filters, and discrete input elements of automated systems. The second part is dedicated to actuators and drives. Students will learn about construction and operation principles of motors (DC and AC), motor control via power modulation, selection of motor for specific applications, and also about motorized actuators such as valves and pumps. The third part is dedicated to the basics of work with programmable logic controllers.

Introduction to course, basics of electricity, safety (2/2)
Sensors - measurement of process quantities (10/10)
Static and dynamic characteristics of sensors - measuring range, sensitivity, offset and drift, precision and accuracy, resolution, linearity, hysteresis, stability, measurement errors, dynamic responses of sensors, sampling frequency.
Temperature sensors - bi-metal sensors and actuators, liquid and gas thermometers, thermistors, resistive temperature detectors, thermocouples, transducers, and transmitters.
Pressure sensors - types according to a measuring range, manometers, mechanical pressure sensors, strain gauges, load cells, diaphragm capacitive and strain pressure sensors, vibronic pressure sensors.
RC circuits and noise filters - harmonic signals in time and frequency domain, useful signal, noise, RC circuits, transfer function of 1st order RC low-pass filter, Bode magnitude plot, design of filter for noise suppression.
Measurement of mechanics and physical properties of fluids - point-level and continuous level sensors: floats and displacers, electromechanical switches, hydrostatic pressure sensors, capacitive level measurement, time-of-flight level sensors; flow measurement: differential pressure flow meters, electromagnetic flow meters, Coriolis principle, ultrasound flow meters, vortex flow meters, variable area and volumetric flow meters, thermal flow meters.

Actuators and drives - control of technological processes (6/6)
DC motors - electromagnetism; force and quantities of rotary motion; electric power and efficiency; important properties of motors; brushed and brushless DC motor; relation between voltage, speed, and torque of DC motor; speed control; pulse width modulation; servo motors; stepper motors.
AC motors - single/three phase alternating current; AC generator; rated AC voltage; single phase and three phase induction motor; synchronous motor; speed of AC motors; control of AC motors; variable frequency drives.
Valves and pumps - Valves: rotary element valves, globe valves, solenoid valves, types of actuators, important properties of valves, pressure loss and pressure recovery, water hammer; Pumps: roto-dynamic pumps, positive displacement pumps, important properties of pumps, pump and pipe characteristics, cavitation, selection of a pump.

Industrial control systems (8/8)
Introduction to digital control systems - Boolean algebra, logical and arithmetic operations.
Programmable logic controllers (PLC) - types of PLCs, properties of PLCs, principle of operation, hardware architecture, I/O modules, physical and logical types of memory, memory manipulation and addressing, data types in PLC, operation cycle.
PLC programming, ladder logic and ladder diagrams - basic elements of ladder logic (LAD), logical operations in LAD, set/reset blocks, timers, counters, mathematics in PLC, data management, operations with data, mathematical functions.
Program organization in PLC - architecture of PLC's operating system, organization blocks and their execution priority, function and data blocks, control of technological processes using an organized program.